The mobile telephone industry has been associated with tremendous growth over the last several years. For instance, in the recent past, mobile telephones were only available to those of highest economic status due to service costs and costs associated with mobile phones. Moreover, network coverage was not extensive enough to enable robust service. In particular, only areas associated with dense population were provided with extensive wireless network coverage. Still further, the mobile phones that could utilize the networks to communicate were quite bulky, causing portation of the phone over any significant distance to be difficult at best. In more detail, antennas associated with these phones could be over a foot in length, thus making it difficult to utilize the phones in automobiles or other congested areas.
In contrast, today's portable phones (and other portable devices) can be utilized as full-service computing machines. For example, many of the most recent and advanced mobile phones can be associated with word processing software, accounting software, and various other types of software. Furthermore, network coverage has expanded to cover millions, if not billions, of users. Additionally, mobile phones have decreased in both size and cost. Specifically, modern mobile phones are often small enough to slip into an individual's pocket without discomforting the individual. Furthermore, many mobile network service providers offer phones at extremely low cost to customers who contract for service with such providers.
Advances in technology relating to mobile devices in general, and mobile phones in particular, continue to occur. For example, recently mobile telephones have been designed to communicate over disparate networks and/or between licensed and unlicensed spectra. In more detail, a multimode handset can connect to a cellular network to effectuate communications between a user of the mobile phone and another phone device, and can further connect via WiFi, Bluetooth, and the like and thereafter utilize the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) (or other suitable protocol) to effectuate communication between users. Use of VoIP is often desirable to users as it is associated with less cost than employing a cellular network. In fact, some users may consider phone calls made over VoIP (or other IP-based network) completely free, despite the fact that they pay for Internet service.
Implementation of this multimode service is due at least in part to the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), which have created specifications that define a mechanism that provides signal integrity for session initial protocol (SIP) signals between an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) and user equipment (UE) (e.g., a mobile phone, a personal digital assistant, . . . ). This integrity prevents identity spoofing, man-in-the-middle attacks, and the like. The IMS represents a 3GPP and 3GPP2 effort to define an all-IP-based wireless network as a replacement for the various voice, data, signaling, and control network elements currently in existence. Furthermore, the IMS enables support for IP multimedia applications within the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). The UMTS is a 3G broadband packet-based transmission of text, digitized voice, video, and multimedia that offers a consistent set of services to mobile computer and phone users regardless of their physical location.
The telecom industry is currently shifting towards all IP-systems, thereby rendering multimode service handsets an important tool (as they are compatible with existing cellular systems and emerging IP-systems). This shift is driven by desires to reduce costs and create new streams of revenue while protecting an operator business model. IMS is a new service domain that facilitates this shift by enabling convergence of data, speech, and network technology over an IP-based infrastructure. For users, IMS-based services enable transmittal and receipt of various data at significantly reduced cost, including voice, text, pictures, video, and/or any combination thereof in a highly personalized and secure manner. In summary, IMS is designed to bridge the gap between existing, traditional telecommunications technology and Internet technology that increased bandwidth does not provide.
As stated above, these emerging IP-based technologies have created demand for multimode services, and thus for multimode handsets. Using this technology, users can employ one of the many wireless technologies supported by the handset to effectuate voice calls, transmission of data, and the like. For example, if one of the wireless technologies supported by the multimode handset is WLAN a user can connect to a LAN by way of WLAN. Upon such connection, users can employ services offered by their service provider.
Currently, when a GSM and/or 3GPP handset operates within a GSM and/or 3GPP network the handset is typically provisioned with appropriate network identity, local time, and time zone information. Such information permits users of such handsets to adapt their usage of these devices appropriately. For example, today many subscriber usage plans apply different usage rates depending upon the time of day that a user initiates usage of their handset. For instance, it is not uncommon for a subscriber usage plan to provide deeply discounted usage rates, or at best free coverage, during weekends and between 9 pm and 6 am on week nights, and much more expensive coverage during business hours (e.g., 9 am-5 pm, Monday to Friday). Thus, users of such handsets, by viewing the time information displayed on the display, can desist from initiating usage of their handheld devices and/or timeshift their usage to more financially propitious time periods. Similarly, many wireless service providers have arrangements or understandings with one another to allow one service provider's subscribers utilize another service provider's network. This, so called roaming functionality, albeit for additional fees typically borne by the subscriber, extends service connectivity beyond that of the home location where the service is registered, and occurs when a subscriber of one wireless service provider utilizes the facilities of another wireless service provider. Thus, for example, in order to obviate the payment of the additional fees that can be associated with the roaming functionality, a user of a handset can upon ascertaining that the network identity displayed on the display associated with the handset desist from initiating usage until such time that he/she re-enters the established purview of his/her home location. GSM utilizes GSM specific mechanisms to provide such network identity and time information and therefore such functionality, though extant in GSM and/or 3GPP networks, has hitherto not been available in non-3GPP networks, leading to situations where when users of multimode devices transition between GSM and/or 3GPP networks and non-3GPP networks, the network identity and time zone information has at best been incorrectly displayed.